The polar regions are warming faster than than the rest of the planet. This has resulted in a weakening of the ‘polar vortexes’ and the ‘polar jet streams’.
[Indeed, a family friend in Alaska says that winters there are twenty degrees warmer than normal, though “you don’t really feel the difference at fifty below zero”.]
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/understanding-arctic-polar-vortex
Regarding the recent Winter Storm Elliott, it was a hard freeze that resulted from the weakened polar jet stream slipping further down towards the lower latitudes, whereas 2021 Winter Storm Uri was a ‘polar vortex event’.
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Related postings on polar vortexes: